Desolation Row

They're selling postcards of the hanging They're painting the pa*sports brown The beauty parlor is filled with sailors The circus is in town Here comes the blind commissioner They've got him in a trance One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker The other is in his pants And the riot squad they're restless They need somewhere to go As lady and I look out tonight From desolation row Cinderella, she seems so easy It takes one to know one, she smiles And puts her hands into her back pockets Bette Davis style And in comes Romeo, he's moaning "You belong to me I believe" And someone turns and says to him "My friend you'd better leave" And the only sound that's left After the ambulances go Is Cinderella sweeping up On desolation row Now the moon is almost hidden The stars they're just pretending to hide The fortunetelling lady Has even taken all her things inside All except for Cain and Abel And the hunchback of Notre Dame Everyone is makin' love Or else expecting rain And the good Samaritan, he's dressing He's getting ready for the show He's going to the carnival tonight On desolation row Ophelia, she's 'neath the window For her I feel so afraid On her twenty-second birthday She already is an old maid Now to her, death is quite romantic She wears an iron vest Her profession is her religion Her sin is her lifelessness And though her eyes are fixed upon Noah's great rainbow She spends her time peeking Into desolation row Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood With his memories in a trunk Pa*sed this way an hour ago With his friend, some jealous monk Now he looked so immaculately frightful As he bummed his cigarette Then he went off sniffing drainpipes And reciting the alphabet You would not think to look at him But he was famous long ago For playing the electric violin On desolation row Dr. Filth, he keeps his world Locked inside of his leather cup But all his s*xless patients They're trying to blow it up Now his nurse, some local loser She's in charge of the cyanide hole She also keeps the cards that read "Have mercy on his soul" They all play on the penny whistle You can hear them blow If you lean your head out far enough From desolation row Across the street they've nailed the curtains They're getting ready for the feast The phantom of the opera In a perfect image of a priest They're spoon feeding Casanova To get him to feel more a*sured Then they'll kill him with self-confidence After poisoning him with words And the phantom shouts to skinny girls "Get outta here if you don't know Casanova he's just being punished for going To desolation row" Now at midnight all the agents And the superhuman crew Come out and round up everyone That knows more than they do Then they bring them to the factory Where the heart attack machine Is strapped across their shoulders And then the kerosene Is brought down from the castles By insurance men who go Check to see that no one is escaping To desolation row Praise be to Nero's Neptune The Titanic sails at dawn And everybody's shouting "Which side are you on?" And Ezra Pound and T.S. Elliott Fighting in the captain's tower While Calypso's singers laugh at them And fishermen hold flowers Between the windows of the sea Where lovely mermaids flow And nobody has to think too much About desolation row Yes, I received your letter yesterday About the time the door knob broke When you asked me how I was doing Was that some kind of joke? All these people that you mention Yes, I know them, they're quite lame I had to rearrange their faces And give them all another name Right now I cannot read too well Don't send me no more letters, no Not unless you mail them From desolation row